Come on in; the water's f-f-fine

Grete Wilt bounced on her toes in the 62-degree water. "OK, guys, adrenaline, adrenaline, adrenaline, adrenaline!" the 14-year-old chanted to Hallee Surber on her left and Mattea Allert on her right. Together, the teenagers' shoulders disappeared beneath a backwash of strokes as they churned across the pool of the Uptown YWCA.

An hour later, Wilt hoisted herself onto the tiled edge. "My hands are cramping," she said, grimacing. "But it's not that bad."

It's not the English Channel either - yet. But that's the destination for a relay team of Minnesota teenagers, another team of adults and a veteran Channel crosser participating in a Y program called Swim for Change.

Its goal is to raise awareness of health disparities in Minnesota, which is both the healthiest state in the nation and the state with the highest drowning rate among blacks.

"It's not only about helping kids of all racial and socioeconomic backgrounds into swimming lessons, but about aquatics education in general - training them to be lifeguards and swim instructors," said swim coach Dave Cameron.

A Channel swim is about endurance, but also about cold. With the Y closed for the Martin Luther King Day holiday on Monday, workers recirculated enough unheated water in the pool to bring the temperature down about 20 degrees, to a brisk 62. The Channel will feel slightly warmer because of the salt water, said Cameron, who spent 13 hours and nine minutes discerning the difference in 2004, when he swam the 21 miles between England and France.

Cameron, 29, is going back this summer to attempt a rare double, swimming across and back, pausing only to pick up a rock on the French shoreline and hoist it aloft.

Yes, that's the theme from "Rocky" in his cell phone.

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Sampling the challenge

The cool pool gave the swimmers a chance to experience Channel temps, but not the waves, currents or jellyfish. Last fall, they swam several times at Christmas Lake in Shorewood, one of the metro area's cleanest and coldest. Sometimes, Cameron turns himself into a wave simulation machine to give the kids a sense of open water.

Monday, though, it was all about laps.

"Oh, geez, it's cold but kind of that dull cold," Wilt said. "If Caribou is open, I'm going to get, like, eight drinks and just put them on my body before I drink them."

Yet Wilt, of Minneapolis, was among those who went beyond the required 30-minute swim to the optional hour. "I've been swimming my whole life," she said afterward, warming up in the hot tub. "I kind of like seeing what I can do. And it's relaxing for me if I'm stressed out."

The swimmers have filled out applications and written essays, and they will have personal interviews. "We're looking for people of good character because they'll be representing the Y and the program," Cameron said.

They'll also have to be persuasive, with each team expected to raise at least $20,000.

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The need to succeed

Eleven girls and two boys ages 12-18 and currently on the YWCA Otters Swim Team are competing for six to eight relay positions. They'll be the first youth team from Minnesota to swim the Channel. The six adults swimming on the Masters Relay Team also will be the first all-Minnesota team to brave the strait. Selections will be announced in February.

The teams will dive in from the English shore sometime during the last week in July; Cameron hopes to attempt his double around Aug. 6.

A Channel swim is unpredictable in many ways. Swimmers seek an optimum weather window and so may wait for days for the right conditions. In Cameron's crossing in 2004, a strong current caused him to swim four hours longer than he had planned.

"After nine hours, I thought I'd be done," he said. "But it's the dread of telling the same story of how you didn't make it that keeps you going."

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Kim Ode - 612-673-7185

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SWIM FOR CHANGE

To learn more about the YWCA's Swim for Change program, go to www.startribune.com/a2164.